Optimal pricing strategy: How to sell to strategic consumers?
研究了战略消费者行为对定价策略的影响，通过比较三种定价策略的利润，发现高低定价仅在折扣较小时适用，而固定定价在战略消费者比例小且折扣大时更优。
Technological advances are preparing consumers to plan their purchases strategically. Selling to strategic consumers at a fixed price forgoes the profit from salvaging inventory, whereas high-low pricing, as a ubiquitous pricing strategy, is costly due to the offered markdown discount. This research explores the overall impact of consumer's strategic buying behaviour on a pricing strategy, and identifies conditions where fixed pricing, strategic high pricing, or high-low pricing is the best approach by analytically comparing the profits of the three pricing strategies. Our results show that high-low pricing is appropriate only if the offered markdown discount is relatively small. If strategic consumers have a small population and the needed markdown discount is relatively large, retailers can ignore strategic buying behaviour and sell products at a fixed price. Our results emphasize that the markdown discount for clearance sales and the market structure of heterogeneous consumers play vital roles in determining the optimal pricing strategy.